Front Row Seats - Unwavering Faith in an Unraveling World

Any of you ever had the really cheap seats at a like a sporting event or a concert?

Tell us why the seats are cheap.

Behind a post.

What?

Behind a post.

Behind a post.

I c we could afford the cheap seats.

Should have watched on television.

Right?

You might as well watch it on that.

Who has any idea what those two dots down there are doing or whatever?

Um I've been uh uh had the privilege to have some great seats at Giants Games, New York Giants Games, because um of speaking in their chapels, but there are other times when um I spoke for the opposing team.

By the way, the the teams are very um Superstitious.

So if you speak for one team that's come into town, like if you spoke for the Cowboys when they're going to play the Giants, then the Giants don't want to see you.

Because you you you got cowboys cooties, you know, so or whoever it is like you cannot speak for both teams.

There's it works out schedule-wise because their hotels are right close to each other.

That's something you don't really care about and don't need to know and I don't know why I told you And they but what's really cool is that um uh well what wasn't cool was very cold was when you get the tickets from the from the uh uh team you spoke for and it's a visiting team.

Oh, you get to see it in the cheap seats at the Meadowlands.

Oh, for goodness sake, bring your Kleenex for the nosebleed, honey.

I mean, it was like What's the point?

You freeze to death up there and you can't see very much at all.

I'm glad for the video screens.

That's kind of helpful.

But um I was thinking if you took kids, for example, to say the circus The big Ringling brothers comes to town and you tell them how amazing elephants are.

And they've seen pictures of elephants.

You're like, well, you're not gonna see a picture, kid.

You are gonna see elephants for real.

Unfortunately, all you could afford was the cheap seats.

And so they're up there in the nosebleed section and they're like, what do you guys think of the elephants?

They're like, eh Because they look, you know, they look like toys down there from the from the you know the amphitheater cheap seats.

Now if you happen to have front row seats I mean those elephants to a kid are gonna look overwhelming.

That's these are huge things.

You get a whole different response based on how close they're sitting to the action.

We're gonna talk about front row seats this morning on God.

Because a lot of believers, without realizing it, are sitting in the cheap seats.

And the closer you get to him.

The bigger he appears, the bigger you know he is, and the closer and the bigger God gets, the smaller everything else gets.

The glory of God is the great problem shrinker.

There's nothing like understanding and regularly experiencing and opening up to and actually feeling the bigness of Yahweh Elahim to shrink everything else Including your problems.

They're still there, but they just don't look nearly as big when you're on the front row seats near a big, big guy Now what happens in the book of Exodus and what I've tried to do is identify kind of, I don't, I'm just like, how do I get my hands around this book?

And there's I I mean I got you think you've I've dumped a dump truck on you.

You should see I got more dump trucks out back here.

I mean that we didn't have time for.

Unbelievable.

But there I've tried to kind of look at some of the major themes, and this is really one that appears over and over again.

And I said in your notes, heaven literally comes down. and blazes right into the Exodus journey of God's people and appears over and over again.

And it's called the glory of God or the glory of the Lord.

I'll give you some examples.

I'm not we won't uh throw verses up there But um when they uh when they get to uh to the Red Sea, God says, I will gain glory through Pharaoh, his army, his chariots, and his horsemen.

So God says The reason for this victory is going to be that I will gain glory through it.

Then afterwards this this it's a great prayer, by the way, in um on the other side of the Red Sea, which they never thought they were going to cross get across. with their sandals still a little wet from going over, Moses has this great prayer when he says to God, you are majestic.

In holiness.

You are awesome in glory.

The word awesome has been so misused.

I mean, it's been so cheapened But awesome is my I I can't close my mouth.

I'm just, you know, I'm I'm slack-jawed, I'm breathtaking, I'm speechless.

You are awesome in glory.

I'm just overwhelmed by your glory.

Well, they've just seen God in living color.

At the Red Sea.

You are awesome in glory, working wonders.

Who's got a God like you?

No God exists like this.

Why would anybody even think of anything else?

You are singular God.

And then um at the uh the God of miraculous provision, when God sends the manna, he says, Oh here's I'm gonna send bread from heaven.

It's really funny what manna means.

You know what the word means in here Hebrew.

It means what is it?

I think that's so funny.

They get up in the morning and go, hey, let's go get a basket of what is it?

It's not exactly a brand name that's gonna be a great commercial.

Hey, what is it flakes?

But But they go pick up their what is it?

Because nobody's ever had anything like this before.

And God says, In the morning you will see your breakfast.

No.

He says, in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord.

There you go.

In the morning you will see the glory of the Lord.

So his provision is again his glory, heaven coming down in the form of his provision.

Then when he when Moses is on the mountain.

And he is receiving the commandments, the blueprint for God's blessing.

Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it.

To the Israelites, the glory of the Lord.

They weren't allowed to go on the mountain lest they die from the from it's it's it's kind of like uh touching uh high voltage wires for them to be in the with the see the full glory of God to the Israelites, the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming Fire on top of the mountain.

So again the glory of the Lord comes down when he's telling us what his blueprint for blessing is.

And then um At the tabernacle, when they finally have the tabernacle built, in the final, one of the final verses of the book of Exodus, it ends with, again, heaven coming down.

It sort of begins with that at the burning bush, and it ends with that at the tabernacle when it says the glory of the Lord came. and filled the tabernacle.

That happened in the temple in Isaiah's day.

And it says it so filled that nobody, there wasn't room for anybody to go in.

Nobody could go into the temple because the glory of the Lord was consuming.

So this is powerful stuff, this glory of the Lord.

So it settles on the tabernacle.

So many times it appears.

So obviously If this is our example book, this is a template book for us, then we're supposed to do something with this glory of God stuff.

Ah, listen, I I don't know how you Define something as undefinable as the glory of the Lord.

But I tried.

This is terribly inadequate.

But it is the awe-inspiring, overwhelming Breathtaking display of all God is and all God does Now, I ran out of words.

Awe-inspiring, breathtaking, overwhelming.

I don't know how many times in your life Yeah, you've been impressed by God, you've been blessed by God, you've been overwhelmed by God.

You really don't have anything to say.

Just you're awestruck.

Something comes over you and something happens and something triggers a vision of him that you're just mind-blown.

Well, that that that that's what his glory does.

That's where the people fall down, they're face down, they're, you know, I mean they don't just sit, ooh, this is, thank you, Lord.

No, they're not sitting.

They're leveled by the glory of God, not because it's terrible, but because it's so wonderful.

And then we we uh See in Psalm 19, uh one incredible window on that glory is the heavens declare the glory of God, don't they?

And what's really crazy is, not crazy, but in these days, they didn't have any Hubble telescope.

You know, they didn't have any observatories.

I mean this is just what they could see right then and they're like, man, I come, I mean, I feel so small.

Do you know that feeling?

Standing by the ocean?

Especially if you can be there alone.

And you say, you kind of think of David thoughts, what is man that you are mindful of him?

You just you feel so finite.

Um do the mountains do that to you?

I mean, you get up on one of those fourteeners in the Rockies or I mean they're just Oh You know, Grand Canyon, uh it's for uh for different ones of us it's it's different things.

Sometimes it's something small.

Sometimes you're just taken by by uh uh the intricacy of a beautiful flower or um you know just uh the blooming and spring, whatever it is, it's just um uh the the roaring river or the Niagara Falls, whatever it is, th those are those are just glimpses of his glory.

You see in the notes here, I'll just I'm going to read it to you.

The glory of God is what our life drive is supposed to be.

It is supposed to be our fuel.

Really, for our spirit.

It's as close to God as a human can get.

It happens a few times during the book of Exodus as an example for us.

We won't and we won't have the same physical circumstances. but the same experience.

It changes people.

And I can I'm going to show you that specifically, how it changes people in noticeable ways.

To have experience with the glory of God.

It's all over the Jews' amazing journey in Exodus, and it is a decisive factor in standing strong in our disturbing times.

And you can write this down and add this to what you see there.

Good decisions depend on having a big, big God.

Good decisions depend on having a big, big God.

Because if you don't have a God the size he really is. then other things will shape your decisions because they will look disproportionately big Because you don't have, remember what the problem was at Kiddish Barnia?

That they were comparing the size of the giants to the size of them?

instead of comparing the size of the giants to the size of their God.

Well, if you have some kind of a deficient God, not not deficient view of God, then you're probably the giants who are gonna win in your calculations of what you're gonna do.

So we get in trouble in our choices if our God isn't big enough.

It's not that we make him big.

It's that we realize how big he is.

Maybe we're in the cheap seats.

And we're making the decision about how big he is from the nosebleed section instead of being on the front row.

John Piper said, God is calling us above all else to be the kind of people whose theme and passion is the supremacy of God in all of life.

No one will be able to rise to the magnificence of the missionary cause who does not feel the magnificence of Christ.

There will be no, this is good, I got this part underlined, there will be no big world vision. without a big God.

Because the big world vision is crazy.

If it's us.

It's got to be a big God.

There will be no passion to draw others into our worship. where there is no passion for worship.

Because if you had the right size God, you'd have a worship you'd want everybody to be in on.

And it would be magnetic.

Here's the reason we need to be regularly in touch with God's glory.

Is we have spiritual ADD.

We get, I mean we're right now we're all focused, we're all God, you know, we're all excited.

But we have a bit as we call it on OEW, we call it, I call it AD Squirrel.

You know, and we have spiritual AD squirrel.

I don't know how you do that in your notes, but uh we're just we we're all we're like all yep man big God big yeah I'm gonna yeah I'm gonna make a decision based on this big God And then we get back and the other things start looking big.

Well, oh, look at the whoa, what do you know, squirrel?

And so we are now, we lose focus.

That's why we got to get that glory of God thing back again.

Because we lose it, we start making dumb decisions again, regrettable decisions.

And Exodus shows us the times and places Where we actually touch the glory of our God.

You look, there's several places in there.

First of all, we know that Moses touched the glory of God on the mountain.

Well, we touched the glory of God on the mountain.

Hopefully, for some of us here, this is a mountain.

It's a mountaintop, you know, retreats.

If your church has revivals, I always love driving by church and it says, revival this week.

How do we know?

I've never known that you could schedule that.

Um I think that's really up to the Holy Spirit when there's a revival, but that's nice if you want to go ahead and schedule. shows up.

But um uh that's don't put that in your nose.

Anyway, but what whatever kind of great spiritual experience and just like Peter, we want to build three naber tackles.

No.

Tabernacles and uh I'm sorry I do with my kids, it's terrible.

And it shows up here.

But uh the he wants to just enshrine the experience.

You can't do that.

These things are dramatic, they are infrequent, they are transforming at the time, and they are revealing because when you are in the glory of God, that light shines things on your life. see things you don't normally see.

So those mountaintop things are very revealing as well.

The only problem with mountaintops, and that's all the glory of God times you have, is they are event fed.

Follow me?

They're event-fed glimpses of the glory of God.

In between events, you sag back into the valley and back into mediocrity again If they're just event fed.

But the mountaintops are part of God's plan.

And then at the tabernacle, and to me, you know what the tabernacle represents?

God's glory portable.

Because they move that thing all the time.

I don't know how can you imagine this thing and moving that that whole operation over and when the pillar of fire, they're like, all right boys, get busy.

Pillar of fire is moving And uh sometimes it would only be for a day, sometimes it'd be for a year.

But They had the but it was portable glory.

And so he the Lord doesn't just want us to have the mountaintop experiences.

He wants to have a sense of his glory that travels With you.

And then there's there's his glory at the burning bush.

And the burning bush moments are the moments where he really speaks to you about your personal mission.

And something he wants you to do for him.

He might be giving you orders, affirming your orders, or changing orders.

He may very well be changing somebody's orders in this room.

Please answer the call.

Don't get don't get stuck with the old orders.

Because those are old orders.

They're not the orders for now.

So those are the moments for Moses.

It's when he learned what he's supposed to do with his life At the tenth of meeting, which is where Moses went and had his personal time with Jehovah, these are the intimate times where your heart and God's heart touch.

Moses did that on a regular basis.

The Celtic Christians who had a great impact on on still have a great impact on our faith more than you may know.

Um, one of the great missionary movements in the history of the church, in the early years of the church, in like a fourth, fifth, sixth century, somewhere in there, coming out of a little island, uh you know, uh uh off the the coast of Scotland, right?

Scotland, Iona.

Um they talked about thin places Sounds like a fat farm, but actually uh thin places are those places where they said the barrier between God's presence and you is very thin.

Those are those, there's not much between us right here.

Suddenly it's like the curtain gets pulled back.

It's a thin place.

Sometimes it's wider in our everyday lives, but there are those moments when there are thin places.

And the Tentum Meeting was a thin place. where God was very close.

Aaron and Moses and the priests were to pitch their tent in front of the tent of meeting facing the sunrise.

I want to tell you some of my holy moments are sunrises.

I'm really addicted to sunrises.

Because for me, they are the visual announcement of new mercies, new day, fresh manna.

I love to see the darkness becoming light, the shadows being dispelled.

It's a symbol of, and God wanted them looking toward the sunrise. to see the dawning of his glory again in that day.

So secret number six of living unafraid is to pursue God's glory Pursue God's glory.

We're going to look at three discoveries that can make the rest of your days following Jesus the best of your days with them.

Because they're going to have more glory in them.

So here's these three discoveries.

First is the glory prayer, and it comes right from Moses as he talks to God with an audacious request of the Lord.

It's a prayer I think we all need to learn, and it's really simple.

And some have called it the greatest prayer in the Bible Exodus chapter 33.

We'll start with verse 12.

Moses said to the Lord, you've been telling me lead these people, but you have not let me, because he's gonna, they're gonna start moving from Sinai now.

You've now let me know whom you will send with me.

You have said, I know you by name, and you have found favor with me, Moses.

But if you're pleased with me, teach me your ways.

Not just so I'll know what to do, but so I may know you.

I want to know your ways so I know you and continue to find favor with you.

Remember that this nation is your people.

They're not my bunch, they're yours.

The Lord replied, My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.

Then Moses said to him, If your presence does not go with us, Don't send us up from here.

We're not taking a step without you.

How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us?

What else will distinguish me and your people?

from all the other people.

We're nothing without you from all the other people on the face of the earth.

And the Lord said to Moses, I will do the very thing you have asked, because I'm pleased with you, and I know you by name.

Then Moses said, Now show me your glory.

Learn that prayer.

Lord, show me your glory Sometimes it might be plural.

Show us your glory.

You know what that means?

All of us at some point or another have our God in a box.

This is the way he does things.

This is the way he's going to do them.

This is as big as I can think.

I got my theology.

I've got my neat little Theology, I don't expect to change it.

Got that cell set, and I got my spiritual, I got my church rhythm Time, oh, time for that, time for this meeting, time for that class.

Yep, time for that.

Yep.

Got my my rhythm going at church and Got my Bible reading rhythm going pretty well.

That's good.

Good.

Got my prayer thing going.

Got my prayer list going.

That's good.

That's very good.

And when you pray, show me your glory.

You are saying God blow the lid off the box.

I am not going to be content and lazy at this level.

Because there's so much more of you.

So blow my mind.

Enlarge my vision.

Change me radically if necessary I just jotted down why you would some reasons we should pray, show me your glory.

Here are some reasons.

They're not in your notes, unless you put them there.

One is you ask him to show his glory to you because it renews your perspective.

He's God, I'm not.

When you have a glory shot, You're back to where you ought to be.

He's God.

I'm not.

We need, we constantly take the wheel again.

Or am I the only one?

He's got it, and then we take it back, and oh suddenly I'm in control, and it might happen several times a day.

So we have got to we've got to have that that glory time to renew our perspective.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus.

Look full in his wonderful face.

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.

Secondly, show me your glory because it reveals my sin.

All through the Bible, the glory of God is repeatedly associated with blazing light.

Blazing light.

And I know what light does.

Light dispels darkness.

Light shows up flaws.

That's why you have a light in the bathroom.

Some of us are like, I just have a little night light because I'm not sure I want to see everything.

You know how it is?

But uh but you know then Some you know ladies sometimes like to have all those light, you know, like the makeup thing with the light bulbs all around, you know, because they actually need to see the flaws, so we don't, you know, we gotta get the do the war pa I mean the um the uh makeup and so um there so it but it reveals where the flaws are and uh that's what happened to Isaiah Isaiah the town the glory of the Lord just filled the temple and uh and overtook him.

And what does he do?

He's the most spiritual guy in Israel at that time.

He's God's voice, he's God's prophet.

He says, Woe is me, I'm undone.

I'm a man of unclean lips.

Whatever Whatever the glory of the Lord exposed probably has something to do with his mouth.

And doesn't it for most of us?

The way we talk, the angry words, the hurting words, the reckless words, the selfish words.

You know, I mean, we probably do more sinning with our mouth than any other part of our body.

Well, you don't want to identify the most sinful part of your body.

Let's go right here probably.

This chainsaw we have, you know, behind our teeth.

Well That th what what what being it's like an x-ray.

I mean, you know, the doctor sends you for an x-ray or a CAT scan or something because because the doctor for all his training or her training cannot see what's wrong with you.

You go you need this this blazing light so to speak to to detect what's really wrong.

And when you come into the glorious presence of the Lord, you may get the question answered, what's wrong right now?

What's going on, Lord?

And then what's going on might be me And when I get me taken care of, the problem's going to be taken care of.

I really would like to blame somebody else.

I really would like to talk about your problem.

You know, my problem, my wife's problem, my children's problem, my co-worker's problem, my not my brother, not my sister, but it's me.

Oh, okay.

First John chapter 1 says, God is light.

Is light and in him there is zip darkness.

There is no darkness at all.

If we walk in the light as he is in the light, what does that mean?

No darkness at all No closets, no locked closets, nothing in the corner, nothing hiding in the attic, nothing hiding in the basement.

If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we drag all the ugly stuff that has stayed in the closet for so long.

We drag it out in the light into God's presence.

Because the glory of the Lord, those glory moments, some of us have had to happen this weekend.

We're like, I don't really want to look at this, but you, I gotta look at this.

Because I can't, I can't fix it until I face it And so if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we'll have fellowship with one another.

Suddenly it starts to, our relationships start to get healed.

And the blood of Jesus, his son, purifies us from all sin.

It clears up things vertically, it clears up things horizontally because we've got cited to get the darkness into the light.

So why did we do it?

Because we saw the glory of the Lord and we saw the ugly of us.

A third reason I think we need to praise, show me your glory, is it renews your courage and it dispels your fear.

Why?

Because it shrinks your obstacles.

It shrinks your problems to their real size compared to your God.

And it renews your courage.

And you're like, okay, I can do this.

And then it illuminates your mission.

We know from the burning bush.

You say, Lord, I feel like I'm restless.

There's more you want me to do.

I don't know what it is.

He shows that often to you in one of the glory moments Like he did with Moses.

And when you experience the glory of the Lord, it rekindles your surrender.

Which, by the way, has to be updated regularly.

You know, I think we some of us may used to we think that, you know, we had the camp experience or the retreat experience or uh you know the the special meetings at church or whatever but and we thought that would do it and we realized how quickly that fades.

You can't keep that going.

That's a jump start for the battery.

It's not the battery.

Sometimes the battery does need an outside shot to start.

But you can't run a car very far on jumper cables.

It's got to be the battery 's got to go.

And it's the daily glory that is the battery that sustains us.

This prayer, show me your glory, Lord, is a prayer for every season. for every situation.

Lord, in this situation, which I hate, make it a glory platform for you.

Somehow.

Show me your glory in this.

It will transform the darkest experiences.

If you say, Lord, I just need to, I see a lot of.

Bad stuff.

Show me your glory, please.

He will love to answer that.

Show me your glory, Lord.

Let this be a thing that shows me your greatness.

So the only thing that's overwhelming to me is you.

Because right now, this is overwhelming to me.

And I need you to overwhelm me.

Because that's reality.

You're so much bigger than this other overwhelmer.

So Doug calls from the reservation.

They've just come back from a doctor's appointment.

Anna is six months pregnant with a baby boy that we have already known will be named Taylor after the great missionary Hudson Taylor.

Dad, mom, get your grace helmets on Because the doctor has found a potentially deadly situation with his heart.

He has a 1 in 10,000 heart condition. and may not survive birth.

There are only a few hospitals in the country that even know what to do with this That would be a time to say, because this is overwhelming.

Show me your glory And God made one of the worst things in our life.

A glory road.

And it continues to be.

First of all, the pediatric cardiologist said obstetricians never detect these things.

And so they don't know till birth.

And so babies are born in hospitals that can't handle it, and sometimes they can't get them to one of the hospitals that can quick enough.

But for some reason, the obstetrician just said from the ultrasound, you know, I he said later, something, something outside of me told me to go back and look at it again.

When they went to the cardiology, she said obstetricians don't see these things.

Because they're so rare.

I said, Doug, there's a prayer we need to pray based on what says in John chapter 9, where Jesus said of the blind man, this has happened that the works of God might be good. manifest in him.

So Lord, we pray that Taylor will be a manifestation of your glory.

Miraculously, we were able to go to the number one rated children's hospital in the country for his birth.

There's no word uh if I told you what it took to get there and how those doors opened, it's unexplainable humanly.

We had no place to stay anyway, because it's funny it was not in an area where we have radio.

A lot of areas we go, all kinds of places people would help us find.

We didn't have any human way.

You know what A month before, I'm speaking for a conference of radio people, and one of them we told the story to ask him to pray.

He said, well, listen.

In the suburbs of Philadelphia, we have a youth pastor's house that is unoccupied right now.

There's no furniture, but you guys can stay there.

So, because we were told it would be months before he could come back if he survived So we had a house.

Little Lowell was three years old.

And and there was a favorite.

A toy that she'd seen in somebody's house that she loved.

It was Mr.

Potato Head.

She didn't have Mr.

Potato Head, but she liked Mr.

Potato Head.

Well, they the dear couple found a few pieces of furniture for us and I'm thinking about Noelle.

This is this is a whole kind of overwhelming for her traveling across. the country not quite understanding everything that's going on.

We walked into that house and in the middle of the floor was Mr.

Potato Head.

That's the god of details.

Now can I I may be the only person you'll ever hear say they saw God's glory in Mr.

Potato Head But I did.

Taylor was born and whisked over to from the hospital across the street where he was born and brought over to uh children's hospital.

And his surgery was when he was two days old.

His heart was as big as a nickel.

They were operating on a little part of a nickel-sized heart.

We sat in a little room.

Doug and Karen and I and prayed together with a nickel on my Bible, this Bible, in the middle of that round table, getting hourly updates on the surgery.

He came through wonderfully when he was born.

He did not have all the defects he was supposed to have.

He had the heart problem and a couple solvable things, but there were so many things things they didn't even recognize him when the doctors came in to check him out they're like well where's the trunchus baby and because he was supposed to not look as good as he did and we were supposed to be there for months.

He went home in 20 days.

We celebrated Christmas at home with him.

Some of you prayed for him nine years ago.

Because he was a month away from being born when we had this retreat.

Show me your glory.

It's a powerful prayer.

It's the glory prayer.

And I guess I put in here and give me eyes to see it, because you can have the glory in front of you and miss it if you're looking over here at the squirrel.

They say that you know when you get near a big city, have you ever noticed that the stars don't look very bright?

But when you can get out in the desert somewhere where there's no earth light, it's just awesome.

Well I go with the word, but they are.

It's awesome to see the night sky and those stars when you got you can see their real birth brightness The problem is the earth light.

All this earth stuff keeps us from seeing his glory.

And the much dimmer lights of earth.

The glory of earth. so to speak, blinds us to the glory of God.

I mean, look, a starving nation That 's when manna came.

That was a stage for his glory to be seen.

He said, You're gonna see my glory in the morning.

A near-death experience at the Red Sea.

That was a stage for his glory, it turns out.

You can see his glory in the most unexpected places.

I do need to mention to you one danger.

Isaiah 42. 8 says, you're in the danger zone when you try to steal some of that.

Glory for yourself.

I am the Lord.

That is my name.

I will not give my glory to another.

It is so easy almost inadvertently to just take a little of the glory for yourself.

God says, I won't stand for that.

I know some pastors were given this advice a while back.

Don't touch the girls, don't touch the gold, and don't touch the glory.

That's just awful good advice for people in Christian leadership.

Don't touch the girls.

Don't touch the gold.

Don't touch the glory.

I want all of our young guys on our team.

Listen.

I want all of our old guys on the team.

Don't touch the girls.

Don't touch the gold.

And don't touch the glory.

By the way, it's okay to brag.

It is okay to brag.

Well, here, if you do it this way, 1 Corinthians 1.

31.

Let's take a look at that.

It is written, let him who boasts boast in the Lord.

If you're bragging about God, you just go brag all you want.

Just take you out of the sentence.

I was telling John at breakfast that years ago Harry Ironside wrote about this man who uh lived in the countryside in England and went to London for a month on business, and he wrote to his wife after his first Sunday there and he said, uh honey, today I got a chance to go to two of the great churches in London.

And this morning I heard Dr.

Cart write, he is a great preacher.

And tonight I went to Metropolitan Tabernacle and I heard Mr.

Charles Spurgeon.

And he has a great savior.

That's the difference.

You want them thinking how great you are?

Or do you want to leave them thinking about Jesus?

You know what this means practically?

You have to change the subject of many of our sentences.

Because the subject of many of our sentences is I.

Now it doesn't mean you never use the word.

That'd be clunky like I'm hungry.

Well I mean, okay, someone is hungry in the world.

Uh this I mean, you know, uh but but a lot of times when we're attributing You know how did you all diagram sentences in school?

Yes, like I hope I thought I I never wanted to hear about that again.

Well, and you know you do the subject up here, they do the line up here, you do the subject and the verb, right?

You know so um uh Um dog ran, you know, and then uh you do this slanting line down, put the preposition into, you know, and then the object of the preposition, the wood.

Some of you going, I didn't get it then, I don't get it now.

That's fine, don't worry about it.

I'm not about, listen, I'm too late now.

So, but but you you on the main line, you'd have you'd have the subject and the verb, and then furp, furp down here, and that would be like whatever was the support of information When Paul came back to the church at Antioch, it says his report went like this.

We reported to them what God, God Had done among the Gentiles through us The subject was always God.

The verb was whatever happened.

What God did through us.

Make sure that when you are reporting on things like that, the subject is God and you are a prepositional phrase.

Does that make any sense?

You say yes, if you passed English, it makes sense.

But you get the idea.

Change the subject of many sentences so we are boasting about the Lord.

Oh, by the way, let's take a look at the climactic experience. of the glory of the Most High God.

Here is the ultimate climax of the glory of God, and it's John 1. 14, as John reports The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we have seen his glory.

We can see his glory in Jesus.

His glory now has a name.

His glory now has a body.

His glory now has a history on earth.

His glory now has a palpable presence.

We've seen his glory, the glory of the one and only who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Now it's embodied, that glory is embodied in our Savior Jesus Now, which leads us to the second discovery that will give you the greatest years of your life with the Lord yet, and that is the glory effect.

We talked about the glory prayer.

What's the glory prayer again?

Show me your glory.

Now, here's the glory effect.

Exodus 34.

Very interesting thing happens to Mount Moses.

He doesn't even know.

When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant.

He's glowing because he had spoken with the Lord.

When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, they're like, whoa, where's he been?

His face was radiant.

They were afraid to come near him.

But Moses called to them.

So Aaron and all the leaders of the community came back to him and he spoke to them.

Afterward, all the Israelites came near him and he gave them all the commands the Lord had given him on Mount Sinai.

When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face.

But whenever he entered the Lord's presence to speak with him, he removed the veil till he came out.

And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, they saw that his face was radiant.

Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the Lord.

Let's fast forward to the book of 2 Corinthians.

That's Moses.

Here's us.

And we who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory are being transformed into his likeness with ever increasing glory.

That's why you can't ever stand still, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit So we got this Moses thing that Moses comes down with a God glow, which affects everybody who's around him.

The Jesus glow from being in his glory, you catch it And it lights every life you touch.

You can tell the people. who have been and and done what it takes to regularly experience the glory of God.

Because they don't know it.

They can't see it.

They got the glow.

Because your countenance really is transformed.

Over a period of time by regular shots of the glory of God.

So we're not his, I mean, you know, you're not the sun, you're the moon.

You know, you go out and say, honey, let's go look.

It's a full moon tonight.

Isn't that romantic?

I really hate to ruin your romance, but that's just a hunk of rock.

Moon, there's I hate to tell the people in the Ozarks just there's no such thing as moonshine.

There is no moonshine.

It's reflected glory.

All that light is sunlight.

Bouncing off the moon.

We're not the sun, we're the moon.

We're just reflecting.

Anything in us that is good is a reflection because we're hunks of rock.

It's reflected glory.

So I guess your Christian walk, if you are displaying that glory, could be described as moonwalking.

No, wait, that's Michael Jackson.

I can't that's horrible.

Uh honey, I'm moonwalking today.

Hey, okay.

Has nothing to do with Michael Jackson or having to wear a glove.

It is all about that well you see here.

Experience his glory, then export his glory.

You experience it, then you export it.

That's what happened with Moses.

He experienced it, he exported it.

And boy, I will tell you, the people around you, starting with your family, need a touch of the glory of God.

They may not directly. go into his glory.

They may not be at that point, but if they're with you, they ought to get a taste of it.

They ought to get a taste of the joy and the awe And the love and the reverence and the tenderness and the gentleness and the humility that comes from someone who's been in that glory a lot When you soak up Jesus regularly, you start carrying them wherever you go.

And the more you're like Jesus, the more you light up your world.

And that's supposed to be happening from glory to glory to glory, it says.

Now, to Romans 8. 28, which people stop too soon.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Thank you Don't stop there because it doesn't tell us the purpose.

So we love quoting Romans 8.

28.

Would you please get to 29?

For those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

What is the good That God is working in all things.

The good he's after is not what you call good, it's what he knows to be the ultimate good.

And that is to give you another characteristic of Jesus, to develop in you a Jesus characteristic that you may need a little work on.

So he says, I know what I need in this toolkit.

I think I think we need a little sickness or we need a little We need some money.

Some lack of money will help.

This kind of trouble, this kind of trial, this kind of blessing He says, I know what you need, and my purpose is to achieve the good.

As a result of this, you become more like Jesus.

So when you're looking for the purpose of the exercise, Why am I going through this?

Start with what Jesus thing is God trying to develop in me?

That's how you start to get the glow.

He uses all things Synergizing them, in fact that's the Greek really is like s it's a synergy word, synergizing them to become a good thing The good thing is that you're getting more like Jesus because of it.

If you don't become more like Jesus because of it, you get the thing, but you don't get the point.

So if you're gonna get the pain, get the point for heaven's sake.

The ultimate good all things work together for is to make you more like Jesus.

Now, that brings us to the last discovery.

We've got the glory prayer.

We have got the the the glory effect.

Now the glory meeting.

The glory meeting.

Exodus 33 verse 7 Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away.

By the way, if you're going to go meet with God, you need to do it in a place you don't do other things.

I think you need to have a God spot.

I try to do that.

So it isn't, because you know there's like baggage that goes with places?

If this is the place I always work or I always do this, you know, probably you you it's it's the tendency to be more distracted.

So Moses wisely, like, I got all these people after me, I got all these needs.

I got all these problems.

If I'm here, I'm going to get distracted.

So he goes outside the camp some distance away.

The for you that might not be going outside the camp.

It might be just downstairs, upstairs, in this corner, the porch, whatever.

Calling it the tent of meeting.

Who's he meeting?

Anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp.

It was his God spot.

And whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose.

They're like, this is big doings.

Moses and God are about to get together.

All the people rose and stood at the entrances to their tents, watching Moses until he entered the tent.

As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down.

Gods arrived.

God's in the house.

We don't have that.

Wouldn't that be something?

You're having a God time and the neighbors. would know something was going on.

They'd all be standing too outside.

The pillar of cloud would come and stand at the entrance while the Lord spoke with Moses.

Whenever the people saw the pillar of clouds standing at the entrance to the tent, they stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to his tent.

I love this.

The Lord would speak to Moses. face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.

Then Moses returned to the camp, but his young age, Joshua, did not leave the tent.

This is an intimate, up close and personal time, and you see the principle, we show up, God shows up.

We show up, God shows up.

Moses showed up.

God said, You show up, you can count on me.

I will meet you big time.

Several times in the Bible we are told these words, seek my face.

Try to think what that means.

I'm always trying to get a You know, trying to bring things down, boil them down, because I'm a I need that.

I just need that to understand it myself.

And I thought of an example.

You know, for example, remember 2 Chronicles 7.

14?

If my people are called by my name will humble themselves and Humble and turn and humble themselves and pray and seek my face.

David said, seek his face continually.

What's that about?

You know what really helped me with that?

Holding a baby.

You know, babies are always trying to get their motor coordinated.

There's this motor coordination thing going on, you know, and they they got these things.

But they don't know what to do with them.

And they're kinda like, how do what I something's supposed to and they watch us and they see these things do something, you know, and hold things and touch things.

And so they're trying to figure out how to aim these th These are like unguided missiles.

I can't aim it.

I don't know what I want.

And you know what when they can finally get it aimed, get these things aimed.

Very often one of the first things they want to do is touch your face Because they know you love them and they know you've been taking care of them and there's something, but I want to touch their face.

We know on the intimacy chart of physical intimacy that touching the face is one of the most intimate bonding things you can do in terms of physical affection.

To touch the face. face.

And the baby, I see a baby seeking the face of a mom or dad.

Because they want to get close to them.

You know what that said to me?

I often seek God's hands.

Because I need him to do something for me.

I've spent a lot of time seeking God's mind.

Because I want to understand his teachings, and that's good.

It's okay to seek his hands.

Supposed to.

It's okay to seek his mind, to learn more about him.

But this, to seek his face, is not for information.

It's for intimacy.

I want to be so close to you that I can actually, like the baby finally figuring it out, I want to touch I want to seek and you have to seek it.

I want to seek your face like a baby finally being able to reach your face and feel close to you like they wanted to all along.

I don't know if that helps you That just to me that picture helps me see what God has in mind.

And Moses and Jesus and God met face to face.

The purpose of meeting with Jesus, since he is now the manifest glory of God, is not to check the box.

Had my devotions checked.

Read my Bible.

Check.

A lot of check the box Christianity.

I have to remind myself it's not to prepare a lesson.

It's not to write something in my journal.

Oh, oh, neither I keep a journal.

Kept a journal for many years.

Let's see, what am I gonna write today?

That's not the reason To go into the tent of meeting.

It's to hear God's voice.

That's why Moses went there.

That's the purpose of the glory meeting is to say, I want to walk out of here and say, I have heard from God.

Not I have read Bible verses.

I have heard from God.

You can read the Bible every day for the rest of your life and seldom hear God's voice talking to you.

It's not the exercise of Bible reading.

It is through his word hearing his voice.

Psalm 119, 18, by the way, another great prayer.

I pray this often as I open his word.

Open my eyes, that I may see wonderful things.

Wonderful, full of wonder things in your law.

That was David's prayer.

Maybe that's one of the reasons he was a man after God's own heart.

Show me wonderful.

I'm wait, I'm not gonna open it yet, Lord.

I'm gonna tell you, I know why I'm here.

Not here to do my duty.

I am here to see wonderful things.

Open my eyes, so I'll see them.

That's it.

I want to hear from you.

I want to touch your glory here.

And face to face to me means you come with nothing to hide.

See, this is God's invitation to experience his glory.

I want you to look at Exodus 34.

Look at what he invited Moses to do.

He said this, be ready in the morning.

Did you get that?

Now this is a little formula for meeting with God.

Be ready in the morning, then come up on Mount Sinai, present yourself to me there on top of the mountain.

Now, you know what I get from that?

Here's the uh the way you uh do your your meeting with God.

Number one, you come ready.

You come ready.

I am ready to hear from God.

I'm not just showing up for to do my duty.

I'm coming.

Secondly, you come early.

You come ready?

You come early.

It seems to be, David said, early will I seek you.

I know people have their time with Jesus at night, and there's nothing in the Bible that says you can't do that, but there's something about the new day before the day happens. and getting your glory, being in God's glory before you go into your day, than at the end of it saying, Boy, it would have been different if I'd had the 'cause you say, well, I'll carry it into the next day.

We don't work that way.

We can't God has this kind of death resurrection thing we do.

We sort of die.

And resurrect every twenty-four hours?

You like you die at night and then you start all over again and start a new day.

So in the new day, his mercies are new than in the morning.

His mercies are new every morning.

So if I'm going to pick when they got manna in the morning, and so if I'm going to pick up my manna, if I'm going to get his new mercies, I probably should come early.

Thirdly, I come alone.

I come alone, Moses.

He said, just you come.

Don't have anyone else come.

And you come surrendered.

You come surrendered saying, I'm coming to you, Lord, with a blank piece of paper, not a contract for you to sign.

You write whatever you want, I'll write on my on my paper today.

Now, here's how how a glory time can take you to a whole new level in your walk with the Lord.

Number one, it's daily.

Now we're talking about regular touches of the glory of God.

It's daily.

Exodus 16, with the manna, and Jesus later said, I am the bread of life come down from heaven.

In the morning you will see the glory of the Lord.

That's when they were supposed to go out and get it.

And then to verse 19.

No one is to keep any of it until morning.

Some of them paid no attention to Moses.

They kept part of it until morning.

See, he says, I want you to pick it up every morning.

Somebody said, hey, I can sleep in tomorrow if I get two days worth.

Next morning they have maggot krispies for breakfast.

Hey, alrighty.

Full of maggots and began to smell.

There's a message here.

There's a reason this is in the Bible.

This is what, remember this is all examples for us?

You can't have day old Jesus.

In fact, let's bring up the sign.

There you go.

You recognize this sign?

It's very special to me.

Has great significance to me.

You eat enough of them, you look like one.

Look, the hot light is on!

That's when you go to Krispy Kreme, baby.

Get free donut They're warm.

Just came out of the oven.

Love it.

God says the hot light is on.

No day-old. .

There's a reason day-old donuts are discounted.

God does not want you to have a day-old visit with him trying to carry yesterday's word into today.

He's got a word for today.

You think I do a word with you?

He does a word with you.

It is God who ultimately says, I want to have a word with you.

My name is Jehovah, and I want to have a word with you today about, and he will tell you what it is about today.

So God's hotlight is on every day.

So don't go for day old.

Let's get rid of that thing.

That's fairly secular distraction.

Okay.

Plus I want a donut.

Now, you know that in Lamentations, you know what it says that your compassions never fail.

They are new every morning.

Don't do a day without picking up that day's mercies daily.

You meet your Jesus and then you meet your day.

And I recommend you don't hear another voice or see another face if that's possible.

Until you've seen his and heard his.

And then , secondly, it's a non-negotiable time.

Numbers 2, verse 2 says this.

I want the Israelites to camp around the tent of meeting.

I want it to be the center point of the entire existence of my people.

The center of their lives will be where you meet with God.

The question is, is your time with the Lord, if I can do it, if I get around to it, or is it non-negotiable?

Everything else revolves around it, or it revolves around everything else?

Thirdly, it's expectant.

And that was the verse we already read.

Oh, show me wonderful things from your law.

I'm going in here expecting to get wowed by something you're going to say to me.

And it's two-way.

It is friend with friend.

Yes, you speak with God, you listen to God.

It's a two-way conversation.

You see, it says here, this is where your relationship with Jesus moves beyond information and activity to the most beautiful intimacy on earth.

So don't just have your devotions.

Pursue his glory.

Go for his heart.

Not just his head, not just his hands, let his heart fill your heart and have a glory start.

Because nothing can overwhelm someone who is regularly overwhelmed by the glory of the Lord their God.

He's the only really truly overwhelming thing there is.

Well, we're about at the end of our journey, and I just want to show you these two very touching pictures that for me kind of put a cap on this walk with God through Exodus.

First is God's epitaph for Moses.

I love this.

Moses goes to Mount Nebo and he looks over the plains of Moab to see the promised land.

By the way, just a little sideline.

Moses did at one point.

Get to touch the promised land on the Mount of Transfiguration.

And when he came back here with for Jesus' glory, he did get to stand. on a mountain in Israel.

Isn't that cool?

But as he looks across, there the Lord showed him the whole land.

Moses , this is what your whole thing has been for, is to get them here.

Nice job from Gilead to Dan and Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab as the Lord had said he would.

And this is most so extraordinary.

God buried him.

And to this day, only the one who buried him knows where the grave is.

Moses was 120 years old when he died, yet his eyes are not weak, nor his strength gone.

I want you to say that about me someday.

That'd be great.

You know, um you know how I picture this?

Maybe I'm over sentimentalizing it, but I s like the God said, I buried my friend today.

I buried my friend Moses today.

I was the only one there.

But we were really friends.

And that happened in the glory moments in a tentacle. meeting, sometimes on a mountain, once in a burning bush.

But he always met with his friend God.

Pretty touching picture, isn't it?

And this was his epitaph.

No prophet has risen in Israel like my friend Moses.

Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, who did all those miraculous signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt, to Pharaoh and all his officials into his whole land.

For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.

What a tribute.

To a former murderer who messed up sometimes, who didn't think he was the man.

Who is God's instrument for all these mighty things?

Last picture I leave with you is the warrior who's a worshiper.

We skipped over a little phrase earlier.

Exodus 33.

Moses has had his meeting with God, but there's somebody who doesn't leave.

Joshua, the warrior, the soldier, the general, the conqueror Is addicted to the presence of God.

That's how you become a great warrior and why one day God will say these words, Moses, my servant, is dead.

Remember this.

God buries his workers, but he never buries his work.

And he says to Joshua, now you will lead them.

And Joshua faces the daunting task of walking in Moses ' footsteps.

Of whom God just said all of that.

Who would want to follow that act?

More than that, he faces the looming walls of Jericho.

The impenetrable fortress that's been there for years.

No one gets into Jericho.

And the fierce, much better armed, much more militant.

Much more experienced in battle, armies of the barbaric Canaanites But God is able to raise up Joshua and say to him, do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God.

There we go again.

I did it for Moses, I'll do it for you.

The Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

And Moses or Joshua is ready to tackle a massive assignment for God.

Because he has spent so much time in his glory.

And that's why he can say to the nation : Be courageous.

Because his courage was built in that tent.

Because before you can be a warrior, you have to be a worshiper.

In the days of Nehemiah, his assignment from God was to lead the people in rebuilding the walls and gates of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem surrounded by tribes and enemies who did not want it rebuilt, who loved the fact that God's city was rubble and they wanted to stay rubble.

It was a threat to them.

And if you read the book of Nehemiah, a couple guys started out opposing it, and then whole armies came and surrounded the workers.

Can you imagine the intimidation?

They still got a pile of rubble, which I equate to the the the the the dirt of the past, which often will hinder our work and there's got rubble all around them and they have got people coming going, we are gonna die, and there's people it says came ten times. and said, they're going to kill us.

That was their threat.

They said, you will die if you continue building this wall.

It is, looks like it is over.

It is, their world is unraveling.

It is an unraveling world around them.

It's a moment for leadership.

And Nehemiah gathers them.

The trumpet is blown.

He gathers the people on the wall. surrounded by armies ready to extinguish them.

And he gives the greatest halftime talk any coach ever gave He says, do not be afraid.

Yeah, right.

Easy for you to say.

Do not be afraid.

Remember the Lord who is great, who is awesome.

Will you stop looking at those people out there?

And remember who your God is.

Remember the Lord who is great and awesome.

That's what you do.

When everything's unraveling, you remember your Lord who is great and awesome.

And he says, and then fight for your brothers.

And with a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other, they continued building that wall, finished it in 52 days.

And defied the enemies who it says they were frustrated because God had had them help them finish their work.

They knew God was in the house.

Oh, there is such a thing as unwavering faith in an unraveling world.

If you say God's got this.

And he's got me.

Let's pray.

Take a minute and release to him what you need to release.

Get it off get it get it off your back.

Respect the supernatural.

Always enthrone, Jehovah.

Answer the call.

Appropriate the blood.

Never sell out.

Pursue God's glory.

There's only one throne.

And perhaps this is the day you re-enthrone him and gotta dethrone you again.

He might be saying clean your room.

You've let too much in.

You've compromised too much.

The minor turn has turned into a major drift.

He says, I can't give you the gifts till you clean a room Maybe it's time for you to accept expect things that are God size instead of you size, what you can figure out.

Maybe it's trying to stop being make it happen Moses and become the let it happen Moses.

Who knows God's got to do it, not you.

And maybe there's been a call on your life and you've heard your name called for a rescue work God has for you to do.

If you feel between you and God that your surrender, your fresh surrender, would be strengthened By an overt act of affirmation and accountability.

Then we'll just give you that opportunity before we begin to wrap things up.

To come and I don't know what else this room was used for, but it is now holy ground.

And you can come and kneel if you're physically able here.

This would be our altar.

Or you can make the altar in your heart for some of us to outwardly declare what we are inwardly surrendering.

Would strengthen the chances of it lasting.

So we'll wait just a minute.

If the Spirit is saying Make this public.

Make it solid.

You want to mark a new beginning in that way.

You come and kneel.

Before Your Yahweh Elohim.

I am the Lord your God.

We'll just wait another minute.

The Spirits told you to do this.

Just do it.

We want to see Jesus To reach out and touch him To say that we love it.

What do you have?

Open our reasons, Lord.

Help us to live, open our eyes, Lord.

We want to see cheesy Lord, I claim for all of us who need a new beginning.

First we thank you for shining the light of your glory on our darkness so we can see what needs fixing And then for allowing us to take that heavy old backpack and leave it at your feet.

I pray for liberated slaves and People with heads held high and brothers and sisters who live like they are the people of God and belong to you and are your face on earth to the people who know them.

We know this may be the mountaintop.

But it won't work without the tent of meeting.

So I pray for us a tent of meeting.

We will show up, not to put in our time or just to read our Bible, but to hear from heaven and touch your heart.

And seek your face.

And now I claim for all of us here this promise That he who has begun a good work in you will carry it on to completion Until the day of Christ Jesus.

And with that, we seal our surrender.

Knowing it is God who works in us, both to will and to do his good pleasure.

And we pray it in the name That moves heaven, paralyzes hell, and changes earth.

We pray in Jesus' name, the God who rescues.

Amen.

Okay.

I hope you'll pray for one another.

Many people have made us surrender.

Some have made us surrender here.

Some have made us surrender In their heart.

I hope you know why God had you here.

I hope his voice was loud and clear, but remember what happens on the mountain is only a temporary fix unless you set up the tent of meeting to meet with him as friend to friend face to face every day Next step, tentative meaning, non-negotiable.